The Crohn's connection
In the fall of 1985 I had moved back to the city of my birth, Toronto, for graduate studies in mathematics at York University. Within a few months I suffered abdonimal pains, loss of weight and general feeling of being unwell. In the winter of 1985 I was referred by one of the doctors at the University Heath Centre to a surgeon, who diagnosed me with Crohn's disease, and scheduled surgery to remove a badly diseased section of my small bowel. The surgery was successful and I recovered fairly quickly, but I was still left weak and thin. A classmate I shared a graduate office with suggested I could ride up to the nearby town of Maple, not far north of York U.

After several trip to Maple and back (about 16 km total distace), I began to push the distances a bit further. In the past I would do long walks, often just to explore areas I'd never seen, and this same desire came to imspire me to see what was over the next hill. And so my classmate innocent suggestion lead me to bigger adventures. Within a few years I was doing 40 and 60 km rides, but clearly these adventures were more than a heavy 3-speed was designed to do. Even still, I felt strong and healthy again. I did finally start getting some bike specific gear, including some touring shoes (looking like special runners), touring shorts ("normal looking" polyester/cotton with zip fly and terrycloth liner) and a helmet (a Bell Tourlite) from Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC), which would become one of my main sources for biking and camping stuff.

Moving on to bigger rides
In 1989, I got a job at a Toronto bikeshop, Bloor Cycle, assembling bikes for the showroom floor. While working at the bikeshop I became exposed to "bike culture" and finally bought helmet, cycling shorts and shoes. Among the bikes I assembled were Treks, and I decided to purchase a Trek 420. It was light-weight, fast and had lots of gears, especially low gears for climbing hills. I became interested in expanding my cycling routes and experience, and some suggested the Toronto Bicycling Network (TBN), a local cycling club. I joined the TBN in 1989 and with my Trek 420, rode with others on rides out to the country. At first I was doing 60 to 80 km rides, only slightly farther than what I'd done on my 3-speed. But I heard about rides called "centuries" and finally completed my first that fall. In 1990 I went on to complete several more and even did the club's double century (320km), the Hairshirt. I had become hooked on riding distances and was starting to look for longer challenges. Among those I met in the TBN was Bud Jorgensen, who I later learned organised the TBN's first weekend bike rall, Cyclon several years earlier, and who was also an avid randonneur. I rode with him on several occasions and heard of his adventures. At about this time I was also involved with an organisation call Cycle Watch, and met another randonneur, David Adler. Both belonged to the Toronto Randonneurs (now Randonneurs Ontario). David's recount of doing a Fleche (a 24 hour team event) was quite entertaining.

Now I'm hooked
After hearing about randonneuring, I joined the Toronto Randonneurs in 1991. I did make an attempt to do a 200 early in the Spring, but for some reason I thought start was at a different location than listed and missed the start of the ride. Since it was a "PBP" year, there were no further opportunities to do a 200, and I had to wait until the following year before doing my first 200. In 1993 I went on to complete a full series and also a Fleche. I was now hooked. I decided to do PBP in 1995, but during a 400km brevet both achilles tendons becamed inflamed and I was not able to complete the require 600. In 1996 I did try completing another series but again was not able to complete the 600. The next few years were fairly low key - in 1997 I completed only one 200, and in 1998 rode no brevets. In 1999 I once again geared up to qualify for PBP and did manage a series and a second 200. By shear will, I completed PBP 1999, though I was serverely undertrained. I took a break from randonneuring in 2000, but the following year, came back stronger than ever. Might have been the fact that I moved off of second lever support shifwork to " 9-5" position in third level support. I've since done many more brevets.